ABOUT SARAH
Sarah West is a somatic healing arts practitioner, dream worker, writer, artist, naturalist, and wilderness guide living amidst the wild beauty of Moab, Utah. Her work is centered in a deep listening to the body, the soul, and the inner currents that shape a life.
Through one-on-one sessions, retreats, and creative work, she creates spaces where people can come home to themselves, to live a life that is more alive, aligned, and deeply true.
Ways to Work Together
One-on-One Sessions
Offered online and in-person, these sessions offer depth-oriented support to meet the places within you that are stuck in fear, self-doubt, repeating patterns, and painful past experiences, so you can move towards a fuller expression of yourself. Learn More.
| Internal Family Systems (IFS) | Jungian-informed Parts Work | Somatic Healing Sessions | Dream Work Sessions | Ecosomatic and Nature-centered Healing Practices |
Group Retreats
Held in Moab, Utah these are spaces where your body, your muse, and landscape meet, and where creativity becomes a way of returning to what already lives within you.
October 8th-12th | Women’s Creativity Retreat Learn More.
Mythic Portraits
Photography sessions in relationship with myth, soul, and story. These images are intimate and archetypal, reflecting something true within you. Offered in the desert or forest landscapes in the Moab area.
Learn More.
MY BACKGROUND
I bring a broad, integrative approach to healing and inner work, shaped by years of training, personal practice, and a deep foundation in creative work.
I’ve been an artist for 20 years, working in photography, writing, sculpture, dance, and painting. Creativity is central to how I listen, attune, and respond in all the work I offer.
As a professionally registered somatic practitioner, I’ve been in private practice for seven years. My sessions are centered in somatic healing and Internal Family Systems (IFS), with specialization in Somatic IFS.
I trained for five years at the Eastwest Somatics Institute in somatic and trauma-informed therapy, including embodied dream work and imagination exploration, nervous system repatterning, somatic tracking, expressive arts healing, ecosomatics, and movement-based therapies.
I also trained for three years with the Animas Valley Institute as a Wild Mind Guide, focusing on nature-based soul work, depth psychology, dream work, and ritual, supporting people in engaging deeper layers of the psyche and soul to find meaning through relationship with natural world.
My background in mindfulness includes studying at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and becoming a mindfulness meditation teacher. For almost a decade I led mindfulness groups, attended fifteen silent retreats, and hold three yoga teacher certifications.
I am also a naturalist and wilderness guide, facilitating retreats and ceremonial wilderness vigils (vision quests), for individuals and groups.
I hold a Bachelor of Science in Anthropology from the University of Utah and pursued graduate studies in Human Evolutionary Ecology.
My cross-cultural studies include time with the Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert and learning from Australian Aboriginals. This deepened my understanding that healing is never separate from land, body, dreams, myth, art, animals, plants, and community, and lives within a wider field of relationship with each other and the living world. This animistic sensibility orients all my work in the world.
Of all my teachers, the natural world has been my most beloved and enduring. I’ve lived alongside wilderness areas for most of my adult life, including years near Zion National Park and in Moab.
My relationship with the land remains a steady source of guidance, belonging, and wisdom.
“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”
—Clarissa Pinkola Estés
The landscape that shapes my work
My life has been enriched by years of engaging in earth-based, somatic, artistic, and contemplative practices.
Living as an artist has taught me the potency of creative expression—for healing, discovery, and contact with the deeper currents of the soul and psyche.
My bond with the earth, and kinship with the living world— the stars, the wind moving through leaves, the vastness of the night, the cliffs at dawn, the creatures who roam at twilight— feeds my wonder, curiosity, and deep listening. It provides the ground from which I stand.
My devotion to the mysteries of the soul has been shaped by time in wilderness and through regular solo wilderness quests.
My dedication to my own healing, to beauty-making, and to living with meaning and reciprocity informs how I meet others.
Together, these practices shape how I hold space—with depth, presence, care, and respect for each person’s inner wisdom.
TRAININGS & CERTIFICATIONS
SARAH WEST is a Registered Somatic Healing Arts Practitioner and Educator through ISMETA
Somatic Healing
Somatic Therapy Training Program with Sondra Fraleigh at Eastwest Somatics Institute (2015-2020)
Nervous System Repatterning, Expressive Arts Healing, Excavation of Body Memory, Trauma-Informed Therapy Approaches, Ecosomatics, Dance Movement Therapy, Movement Imagery. Embodied Dream Work, Butoh, Focusing, Contact Unwinding, Effective Communication, Authentic Movement, Mindfulness, Somatic Education Training, Land-to-Water Yoga Training (500 hours), Somatic Bodywork Training (Feldenkrais, Craniosacral, The Alexander Technique)
Internal Family Systems (IFS): Parts Work
IFS Therapy Certification IFSCA Training with Derek Scott (2021)
Working with Unattached Burdens in IFS Therapy with Robert Falconer (2021)
Healing Medical Syndromes using IFS with Lissa Rankin and Dick Schwartz (2021)
Somatic Parts Work Certification with Francis Booth (2021)
IFS Circle: An introductory online program (2020)
Animas Valley Institute: Nature-Based Soul Work Training
Wild Minds Training Program (2019–2021)
Immersive training included Soulcentric Dreamwork, Council and Mirroring practices, Shadow Work intensive, Wilderness Quest facilitation, Soulcraft intensive. and creative process work in nature including Courting the Muse.
Co-led Animas Valley Institute group Wilderness Quest (2021).
Somatic Experiencing: Body-Centered Healing
Principles of Somatic Experiencing (2020)
Healing Trauma: Restoring the wisdom of the body with Peter Levine
Yoga as a Neurobiological-based Therapeutic Strategy with Joann Lutz
Polyvagal Institute: Nervous System Theory
Polyvagal Theory: A Neuroscience View Explaining Reactions to Safety and Threat with Dr. Stephen Porges, course (2019)
Hakomi Institute: Somatic Healing
Somatic Trauma Healing with the Hakomi Method with Manuela Mischke-Reeds (2020)
Hakomi Mindful Psychotherapy: An Experimental Introduction (2020)
Mindfulness Meditation
Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training with Tara Brach & Jack Kornfield (2019)
Mindfulness of Race, Retreat with Ruth King (2019)
Led the Zion Canyon Meditation Group, facilitated weekly sitting meditation, mindful walking, mindful eating, and compassionate communication (2014-2020)
Participated in 15 multi-day mindfulness meditation silent retreats (2014-2020)
Yoga
Spirit Rock Yoga Teacher Training Program, 200 hours with Djuna Devereaux, Tias Little, Leslie Booker, and Ann Cushman (2019)
Eastwest Somatics Institute Yoga Teacher Training, 500 hours Somatic Land-to-Water Yoga
Gaia Tree Yoga Teacher Training, 200 hours, Springdale, Utah
Dance
Studied and practiced various forms of dance including: Modern Dance, Butoh, Metamorphic Dance, Authentic Movement, Ecosomatic Dance, 5Rhythms, and Contact Improv (2000-2025)
Wilderness First Responder
Wilderness Medicine of Utah, weeklong WFR intensive with Brian Essig (2023)
Wilderness First Responder Re-certification (2024)
“Sarah West is a river of love, compassion, and wisdom. She cares deeply for the earth and all life and dedicates her life to helping others. Love is the power that drives her and love is what she gives. Working with her is to work with a great soul with a great heart and is a huge privilege.”
-Micheal Philips, Nature Advocate
If you feel called to explore this work, I’d love to meet with you in a free 20-minute consultation.
